WASHINGTON -- While some Republicans want the top leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs replaced, some leading veterans' organizations instead are putting blame for problems with VA health care on the opposition to funding increases by a GOP senator.

The Memorial Day battle was touched off by a letter over the weekend from Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who criticized some veterans' groups for not joining him in asking that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resign over accusations that at least one major VA facility in Arizona put out a bogus waiting list to make the wait for health care seem far shorter than reality.

His letter touched off an angry reaction from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the Disabled American Veterans and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

"Given the opportunity to ensure that the VA has fully sufficient resources to establish adequate capacity and properly meet the health care demands of veterans, you have chosen to send them out into the private health care marketplace that cares more about the bottom dollar than the health and well-being of those men and women," said Bill Lawson and Homer Townsend, leaders of the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

The VFW also sharply criticized Burr.

"For years, the VFW has come to Congress with hat in hand and for years, we've heard the same old story, wrote William Thien and John Hamilton, the VFW's top officials. "You can be assured Senator (Burr) that you've done a superb job in showing us the error in our ways. You can also be assured that in the future, we will spend a substantial percentage of our time seeking to inform our members and our constituents of the repeated failure to act by our elected officials."

Burr touched off the groups' ire with a letter suggesting some veterans' service organizations staff members weren't serving their members when they failed to call for new management at VA. Among the major veterans groups, only the American Legion had called for Shinseki, a retired Army general, to resign over the problems at the VA.

"Last week's hearing made it clear to me that the staff has ignored the constant VA problems expressed by their members and is more interested in their own livelihoods and Washington connections than they are to the needs of their own members," said Burr, the top Republican on the Senate Veterans Committee. "I fear that change within the VA will not be possible unless and until these organizations also reconsider their role as well as the nature of their relationship with VA."

Burr has been leading Senate Republican opposition to a bill, sponsored by the Veterans committee's chair, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would expand VA health care benefits, including immunizations, chiropractic care, treatment for traumatic brain injury, wellness promotion, dental care, and reproductive services for veterans unable to produce children because of battlefield injury. Sanders has fallen four or five votes short of the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster.

The Sanders bill would also authorize funding for 27 new VA health centers, including one each in Lafayette and Lake Charles. Sen. David Vitter, R-La, has been seeking unanimous consent to bring up legislation approving the 27 facilities, but Sanders has objected saying it's important the Senate vote for a comprehensive improvement in VA benefits, including the 27 centers.

Last week, there was another floor discussion on the issue, with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., pushing for more accountability for the VA and Sanders arguing for due process and giving the VA the resources it needs to serve the inflow of seriously injured veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq.

"This (Sanders) bill has already been debated, and there are problems with this bill, which is an extensive piece of legislation with many good elements in it, but it also has a cost issue at a time when our Nation owes close to $18 trillion," Rubio said. "That was the reason so many on my side of the aisle objected to it, and that is why I object to the motion made today by the senator from Vermont.

Responded Sanders: "He is right -- it costs money...This country has a deficit. He would be right if he said that going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost us trillions of dollars, which is one of the reasons we have the deficit we have. But I believe from the bottom of my heart that if we go to war, if we spend trillions of dollars on that war, that when our men and women come home from war, some wounded in body, some wounded in spirit -- I don't want to hear people telling me it is too expensive to take care of those wounded veterans."